In the last few days I closed the Women Born Transsexual Mailing List. I’ve unsubscribed to most Trans-Oriented mailing lists, including those where I used to pick up a lot of stories for this blog.

Time comes for things to end. Bill Browning has hit this point, Pam hit it a while ago as have others.

I’m about there. Maybe this blog will last a few more months or another year or so but I’ve reached a point where I don’t much care any more. I’ve gone through my Facebook pages and eliminated many trans-folks whose lives are only about trans/queer life.

Almost 11 years ago, I turned my personal homepage into a blog covering Indiana politics and LGBT issues. A few years later as more and more folks signed up to join me here, we turned our focus national and Bilerico Project was born.

We wanted to cover what was lacking on the big blogs at the time – real political and cultural analysis provided by LGBT movement leaders and everyday activists. We wanted diversity not only in our writers, but also their views. “What’s the worst that could happen?” we thought. “No one likes the new format so we go back to our roots?” Thankfully, readers loved the expanded coverage and we were off to a roaring start.

Together we’ve covered a multitude of important stories. From George W Bush’s election to the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality, we’ve brought the best news and analysis we could. We’ve made a change in the Salvation Army’s anti-LGBT policies and ensured an innocent HIV+ immigrant was released from prison to die surrounded by loved ones. Together, our writers and readers have made a difference.

Projects are meant to be temporary and so was Bilerico Project. After more than a decade, it’s time to wrap up our experiment. The media landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade and so have our lives and the LGBT movement itself. It’s time to turn the page and start something fresh in this new environment.

My first post in 2004 was a quote from Margaret Meade. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” I think we’ve done our part to make the world a better place.

This will be my last post on Bilerico Project. The site will be archived at bilericoproject.com so that all 31,000+ posts will still be available for readers. It’s been a long strange journey and I’ve loved every single moment of it, but the time has come to end the project and call it a success.

Jamie Lee Henry joins a handful of other out transgender soldiers proving they are fit to serve.

BY Mitch KellawayJune 11 2015

Slowly but surely, stories of transgender people serving openly in the U.S. military are emerging, each heralding a new step of progress in overturning the institutuion’s ban on open trans military service.

This week, Buzzfeed introduced the world to a trans woman serving openly while an active-duty Army officer, Jamie Lee Henry, who has the distinction of being the first known servicemember to change her name and gender within the U.S. armed forces.

A 32-year-old trans woman who serves as a doctor and major in the Army Medical Corps, Henry shared with the news site how she’s been able to remain serving, in part: with the clear support of her commanding officers. When she came out as trans three years ago and faced familial upheaval — which eventually included divorce and a brief stint of homelessness — Henry said her then-commander helped keep her career on track and even temporarily housed her.

When last fall she began to take steps to medically transition, Henry said her new commander backed her too. “My commander said, ‘I don’t care who you love, I don’t care how you identify, I want you to be healthy and I want you to be able to do your job,” she recalled to Buzzfeed. Henry said she expected to be considered a “freak” and to be discharged under Department of Defense Instruction 6130.03, a regulation which dictates that any type of gender-confirming clinical, medical, or surgical treatment is evidence of “disqualifying physical and mental conditions.” Though following the instruction is not required, its common usage has kept an estimated 15,5000 transgender troops serving in silence about their gender identities.

Last last year, the Army ruled that the decision of whether to separate trans troops under this regulation would be taken out of the hands of commanding officers and elevated to the assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs. Even so, chains of command appear to play a key role in the stories of each of the handful of trans servicemembers that have been able to serve openly, as shown by the stories of Jacob Eleazar, who served in the Army as TAC (Teach, Assess, Council) officer, and illustrated by The Advocate‘s exclusive interview with Army Sgt. Shane Ortega last month.